The Serpent and the Phoenix
by Stuckintexas
Summary: Hermione Granger's life falls apart when Voldemort murders her parents. As she is picking up the pieces she meets a ghost in Grimauld Place and is determined to figure out who they were and why they died. It does occur to her that not all ghosts are of th
1. The Granger's House

This is my first attempt at writing a full-length angst story. I hope you like it. Any tips or critiques welcome.

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Chapter One

The Granger's House

The sun began to sink in the sky as the first official day of as the Granger's car pulled into their gravel driveway. Hermione got out and surveyed her house for the first time in nearly a year. It had an antique feel to it as if its inhabitants had died. An usually cool breeze blew past sending a shiver up her spine. She was all too aware of the danger posed by Lord Voldemort now he was back in power. The bushy haired girl didn't want to think of what would happen if Voldemort appeared on her doorstep.

Mr. Granger pulled Hermione's polished holly trunk out of the back of the bright red Toyota they owned and shut the boot.

"It's lovely to have you back again," said Mrs. Granger letting Crookshanks out of his cadge. "Your father and I hardly ever see you. We missed you at Christmas."

Guilt panged at Hermione's insides at this statement. Lying to her parents felt horrible yet she dreaded telling them the truth.

"Well, I'm home now," said Hermione. "I really missed you."

She dragged her holly trunk up the carpeted stairs and into her simple room. It had not changed since she had left. The pale blue wallpaper seemed to be weeping. Looking out the window to the garden, Hermione saw Crookshanks running around the garden and playing in the rose bushes. She sighed and went down stairs where her father was reading the newspaper and her mother was making dinner. The scene was almost too perfect to be real, a distant memory.

"How was school?" asked her mother from the kitchen.

"Oh, fine, I really think I did well on my O.W.L.'s. I spent ages studying and really felt prepared. I was nervous during and after the exams and was convinced I had failed but now I am sure I passed," Hermione stopped abruptly after she realized she was rambling.

"Is that all?" asked her father, "I thought at a school of magic more exciting things would happen."

The bushy haired girl stared at the floor for a few moments. "Well, the end of the year was really sad. You know my friend Harry? His God-Father died." After spitting out this lame sentence tears welled up in Hermione's eyes. All that she had wanted to talk about but hadn't been able to bubbled up with in her and burst out in a torrent of sobs. "He was murdered, and it was so unexpected! He – he had been cooped up – then Harry – if only he had known!" She broke down sobbing. Suddenly all she had wanted to talk about spilled out in a torrent of misery.

Gingerly patting his weeping daughter on the back, Mr. Granger tried to figure out what Hermione was saying. Her mother, who had heard the cries from the kitchen, rushed in wrapping her daughter in her arms.

"Oh my poor baby," she said comfortingly. "Harold, watch the cooking please."

Hermione told her mother all that had been bothering her. Nowhere in the world had she felt safer than when she was in the loving embrace of the one who had given her life.

Eventually dinner was ready. Hermione sat at the smooth, oak table, grateful for her parents. She picked up her knife and fork, but before she could tuck into her lamb chops a yowl from the back yard interrupted her.

"What on earth is that?" asked her mother looking up from her own plate of food.

"Probably Crookshanks," replied Hermione, "I'll go see what he wants."

She picked up a flashlight and walked out the back door, and saw Crookshanks lying on his side yowling.

The bushy haired girl ran forward. "Oh Crookshanks, are you hurt?" she asked.

As soon as she got within two feet of him, Crookshanks jumped up and sprinted out of the garden and down a public footpath.

"Come back!" yelled Hermione chasing after him, trying to keep the beam of her flashlight on the fleeing cat. She ran down the crumbling pavement path as the sky darkened. A loud crack in the distance rang across the sky. The chase lasted fifteen minutes and by the time Hermione found Crookshanks purring at the based of a tree, her breath was coming in short, painful gasps. The bushy-haired girl leaned on the knarred trunk trying to catch her breath.

Looking down on her cat with loving frustration she asked, "What was that all about?" Crookshanks just flicked his tail and looked up at Hermione with his large yellow eyes. She scooped him up and started back towards home. The winding twisting path was becoming hard to follow in the twilight. The flashlight began to die in her hand.

(Time Passes)

Half an hour down the path shrieks filled the air and the smell of smoke hung thick in the air. Hermione ran down the path until her roof came into view. A woman gave a high-pitched piercing scream. Loud laughter followed this as the screams abated into sobs.

"Mom!" she yelled as she dropped Crookshanks and sprinted towards the house. Her heart skipped a few beats as a fish of green light momentarily lit up the sky.

"Cynthia, No!"

Hermione continued running though she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Her mind was frozen. Crookshanks suddenly appeared under her feet. Too shocked to react she tripped spectacularly and crashed into a row of rose bushes by the fence around the garden.

Hermione lay there dazed and scratched in the moist black dirt. Darkness filled her vision and thorns tugged at her skin and clothes.

"Where is your daughter?" a cruel voice demanded. This confused her for a moment. She didn't have any children. Then she realized the voice wasn't talking to her.

"I don't know," she her father reply.

"You lie!" the cruel voice hissed. "_Crucio_!"

Hermione felt a wave of fear and nausea as she heard her father's scream. She looked up to see three hooded figures and one deathly pale one in her house through the windows. The sound of the scream was unbearable. She wanted it to stop, to end. The thought of her father in that much pain tore at her insides.

"There is no point torturing him," a high-pitched voice said as if talking this out over a cup of tea, "He speaks the truth."

"_Avada Kedavra_," drawled the cruel voice as if killing was nothing. Hermione could not move as she saw a flash green light and heard a thud that was dulled and yet seemed to echo through eternity as her father hit the ground, dead.

"The woman did not know where Potter's friend was either," said a high-pitched voice without emotion, "Dumbledore probably has her safe somewhere, there is no point in staying here."

Flames were dancing higher behind them intent on devouring the house. They licked the walls in a hypnotic way that brought to mind sirens seducing young men before eating them. The man with the cruel voce sighed and said said, "Pity we could not find the girl."

"Yes, but the news of what has happened to her parents will soon reach her."

"Time to go," said the cruel voice. Many cracks echoed through the night like fire crackers as the Death Eaters disapparated. She looked up to see the white face and red eyes of Lord Voldermort before he too disapparated. She did not see hate or anger in his face but sadness and a place devoid of love, and twisted by hate.

After Lord Voldermort and his Death Eaters had gone she lay Hermione head down and did not move, unable to comprehend what had just happened. She did not care about the many scratches and cuts she had obtained when she fell through the bush. There pain did not compare to the pain inside her. Hermione didn't even notice the emerald Dark Mark in the sky above her house. The light of her life had gone out and her home reduced to gray ashes.

"They're gone," echoed through her head. She lay in the mulch and broken rose branches stunned by shock. "They're dead."

Please review and tell me what you thought. the whole time passes thing in the middle was because they will no longer accept the creative lines that usually separate scenes.


	2. Numb and Hurt

I got two reviews in less than half-an-hour! That has never happened before so thanks. I have tried to update quickly as requested. Here is chapter two and the title pretty much describes the overall mood. Enjoy.

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The Serpent and the Phoenix

Chapter Two

Numb and Hurt

Crookshanks mewed and licked Hermione's hands and face, his coarse tongue hurting her tender, scratched cheek. Numbly, she looked at him, as the wail of sirens grew louder in the distance. It was time for her to leave. The bushy haired girl wanted to be long gone by the time the Aurors and muggle policemen arrived.

Hermione slowly got up, wincing with every moment. She checked her pocket. It contained fifty pounds of muggle money and five galleons. Her wand lay in the house that now blazed as fire reduced it to ashes. Before starting off towards the muggle train station. She took one last look at her house, a blazing bon-fire that stood out against the violet sky. As she turned the corner the crack of wizards apperating rang across the empty street.

The bushy haired girl walked down the dark alleyway that lead to the train station of her village. She was hoping to get a ticket to Oterry St. Catchpole and the Weasleys. That was the only place Hermione could think to go. She would probably have to go via Maidstone but she would get there in the end.

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The florescent lights of the train station cast a harsh glow on the pavement path that ran along in front of it. It stood as it had always done, a depressingly gray building with faded signs. When Hermione had been five-years-old and the train station the pride of the village, it had been clean, white and the signs had been bright and colorful. Budget cuts had plunged it into disrepair. Trash and dried leaves were strewn about the inside lobby like dirty clothes thrown across the floor of a bedroom.

A woman, with bleached blonde hair, fake nails, bright red lipstick, in a tight pleather dress that was four sizes too small and showed of her cleavage, sat in the chair behind the only open ticket window. A cigarette rested in her left hand, the smoke curling upward creating a halo around her head. She looked as if she were about to go work the streets as a hooker.

The woman behind the desk eyed the bushy haired girl disapprovingly. Her thickly lined eyes took in Hermione's bushy tangled hair, ripped clothes and blank expression with distaste.

"A ticket for the next train to Maidstone, please," said Hermione in a far away voice that was much more like Luna Lovegood's than her own. The woman smirked. Her heavy perfume was suffocating.

"Twenty-five quid," said the woman punching some buttons on her computer, "and it comes at ten past eleven, about fifteen minutes from now."

Hermione handed over the money not bothering to object to how over priced the ticket was and too dazed to notice the woman slip some of the money down the front of her dress. The woman handed Hermione a ticket with a smug look before picking up the latest Tabloid magazine and continuing to read it.

Hermione sat on a bench of the only platform of the station. Glass was splayed across the pavement underneath the light vandals had smashed in. The only other person there was a white haired man who stank of gin in a tattered coat. Crookshanks appraised the man shrewdly before sitting at Hermione's feet. A light breeze blew some empty chip bags and dead leaves across the platform and into the shadows. The white haired man stirred.

Stupefied and confused, she did not know whether the time at the station passed slowly or quickly. She only knew that it passed and the train arrived. Hermione got on with Crookshanks at her heels.

The train had few other people on it. Shiny, cold plastic seats sat in rows. The whole carriage was lit in a harsh, bright artificial light. The man who smelled of gin sulked in a corner. A skinhead, with so many tattoos it would not have been surprising if her had tattooed his eyeballs, winked suggestively at Hermione. Starting to get up, he noticed that Crookshanks was giving him the evil eye. Not wanting to be stared down by a cat he stared back. Crookshanks won and the skinhead resolved to stare out the window.

Hermione didn't notice. She was in a bubble surrounded by a sea of darkness that was threatening to break in.

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Hermione got to Maidstone at around one o'clock in the morning. The train station was closed for the night so Hermione sat on a bench outside to wait for the morning. Apart from a adolescent boy trying to sell her crack, no one took any notice of her. Even the crack dealer didn't stay long due to the fact that a soon as he offered Hermione the drugs, Crookshanks lodged his claws in the boy's leg.

She did not move, eat, or sleep, a statue in the park. The bushy haired girl was trapped in her horrified trance. She didn't even tend to her scratches, which had clotted messily. She was a girl stuck in her own world of darkness waiting for the dawn.

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When the clock tower near by chimed that at half past six and the sky had turned a light grey, Hermione walked to the stately ticket window. A sleepy young man sipping a cup of tea sat behind it.

"I would like a ticket to Ottery St. Catchpole, please," stated Hermione in an airy monotone.

The man glanced up at the wreck of a girl that was in front of him and swallowed his tea. "A train leaving at seven fifteen goes through there, will that do?" he asked kindly.

"Yes," replied Hermione in a whisper, "how much?"

"Five pounds. You can also buy a nice hot breakfast on the train if you wish."

"Thanks," murmured Hermione handing over the money and taking the ticket. The small sheet of paper rested delicately in her hand.

The stunned orphan looked up at the bulging gray sky that threatened to burst at any minute before heading to the ash-colored cement platform to wait for the train. Mutters and whispers followed her and mothers hurried children out of her way. Comments about bad parents followed her like a shadow.

A sleek, white, train screeched into the station as it slowed to a halt. The bushy haired girl boarded the train right before rain began to splatter the panes of glass that were the windows. During the whole train ride all she did was watch the water droplets run down the windows like the tears that were soon to come from her.

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Hermione arrived at Ottery St. Catchpole at around four o'clock in the afternoon. Stumbling up a small road, tripping over the smallest ditch or stone, studying the path for a familiar land mark, she found her way to the Weasly's house by the path they took to Stoatshead Hill when they went to the Quidditch World Cup. The fatigue, shock, and lack of food was beginning to take effect and it made her limbs shake so badly it was all she could do to keep herself upright and walking. The rain came down harder than ever. Even though it blurred Hermione's vision and made her hair plaster its self to her face, she didn't feel it.

The Burrow slowly swam into sight through sheets of rain. No feelings of happiness radiated from it. Sadness hung in the air like a thick fog. Hermione knocked on the door and waited. She didn't know what she would do if the Weasleys weren't there.

Finally the desperate girl heard the shuffling of footsteps and a few sniffles before Mrs. Weasley opened the door. The last thing Hermione remembered before the fainted was the expression of shock and disbelief in Mrs. Weasley's face.

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"Will she be alright?" asked a voice in hushed tones.

"Dumbledore thinks so," said another.

Hermione slowly regained consciousness and the room eventually swam into focus. The memory of her parent's deaths came back and for the first time she felt the pain of their loss. She wanted to go back to sleep and forget about it all, for the shock that had numbed and protected her had left. It was as if a gapping hole had been opened in her chest where her heart had been. It just hurt too much. They were the people who had loved and raised her. They couldn't be gone.

The bushy haired orphan glanced over to notice Ginny and Mrs. Weasly sitting by her bed. Both of them had pale, tear streaked faces. Letting out a sob she began to shake as tears cascaded down her face. Mrs. Weasly had Hermione in a motherly hug in an instant. This reminded her of the hug her mother gave her bringing a fresh stab of pain. She cried even harder. If only she had been able to stay in her mother's warm, loving embrace for a few moments longer.

"Ginny," said Mrs. Weasly quietly, "go fetch a nice cup of tea and some cake for Hermione." Ginny left through a small door in the corner of the green room. Ginny's belongings covered the floor like snowdrifts.

Hermione stared around bleakly and thought of her room, her house, her parents, and her life. The awful Death Eaters had destroyed it all. It was all gone. There was nothing left to replace it. She felt as if the world had ended and the tears would just keep coming until they had flooded the room.

When Ginny came back she was holding a lavender tea pot on a tray with three cups and three slices of chocolate cake next to them, each on it's own powder blue plate. Hermione took a piece of cake and took a bite with tears still streaming down her face. Even eating a large piece of homemade cake didn't make Hermione feel better. Chocolate, a woman's best friend, no longer had a taste. The soft mush clumsily slid down her throat and dropped into that dark pit that had once been her stomach. The hole in her heart could not be filled with cake. She left the rest of the cake untouched and focused on trying to stop crying.

If she concentrated on the normal things then the orphan could drive the sadness from her mind. She would think she had managed it when a memory of her parents would float up and the torrent of tears would begin anew. There was an endless supply. Ginny and Mrs. Weasly just sat there drinking their tea and giving her comforting hugs. Hermione couldn't think of anything they could do would make her feel better. They didn't seem to think of anything either.

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The light had faded from the sky turning it an inky black and the painful sobs had been diminished to hiccups. Hermione's head throbbed painfully. If she focused on the pain in her head she could temporarily ignore the pain ripping at her insides.

"I have to go make dinner," said Mrs. Weasly quietly before getting up and walking to the door. Ginny sat by Hermione's bed a rather stiff wax figure. Her eyes looked like dying candles. She sat carved in stone and in the light of the one lamp she looked much older than she was in years.

"I thought you were dead," Ginny said as if she were whispering at a funeral. Hermione didn't speak but looked at the sheets. She was alive, but her parents were dead and she wanted to be dead too.

"Why weren't you at the house?" asked Ginny, tentatively.

"I don't want to talk about it," replied Hermione in a shaky voice. Ginny pulled Hermione into a hug. It helped a little but no one could replace her parents or their love. No one could fill the void that they had left. No one could love her like they had, comfort her like they had, or look after her like they had.

Oh, how she missed them.

If only she had been with them a moment longer. Stuck in one of the moving photographs they had been so happy in.

Just five more minutes.

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What do you think of my new divider things that I am using? This is what happens when you can't get to sleep and you have a computer in your room (sadly the only computer with internet access is downstairs). Anyway I hope you liked it. I have written more and I promise you will meet the ghost in the next two or three chapters.


	3. We're Moving!

Forgive me for taking so long to update. I like to edit my chapters quite a bit so none of the horrendous grammar mistakes that are in the first draft remain and I can add more detail. I have Just read the Half-Blood Price but since I got my ideas for this story before I read HBP, Try to make it fit a bit with the sixth book but it will not be the same. I will try to be faithful to the cannon.

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The Serpent and the Phoenix

Chapter Three

"We're Moving!"

The next day Hermione joined the Weasley's for breakfast. The orphan had not seen anyone but Ginny or Mrs. Wealsey before then. The kitchen fell quiet when Hermione entered and all eyes were on her. This made her feel worse about her current situation. All the Weasleys seemed keen to make sure they gave Hermione a sympathetic hug; Even Bill and Charlie, who were visiting to help celebrate the end of term, gave her a hug.

Porridge was the main item on the menu. When Hermione sat down she noticed that Harry was already sitting at the table, watching her. She sat down next to him sure that he would not pester her about anything at that moment and they both ate their porridge in silence as they listened to the conversation around them.

No one mentioned what had happened to Hermione's parents, or any other attacks for that matter.

After a while Harry pushed his bowl of half-eaten gray porridge aside and looked at Hermione with sympathetic interest. He took a deep breath and paused a moment before asking, "Are you alright Hermione?"

"No," replied the bushy haired girl as tears filled her eyes, "now I know how you feel."

Harry looked at her and awkwardly patted her on the shoulder to try and comfort her. Hermione fully appreciated that she had someone who understood exactly what she was going through.

"You will need your friends with you," said Harry comfortingly.

"Yeah, me and Harry will always be here for you," added Ron through a mouth full of toast, spraying Harry's cheek with crumbs. He was sitting on Harry's other side. "Mum and Ginny always say that chocolate makes them feel better so Harry and I ordered the best chocolate money could buy by owls post. It just arrived for you."

Ron presented Hermione with four large golden boxes of chocolate. She opened the bow to see the brown, creamy surfaces of the delicious morsels.

"Thanks," replied Hermione weakly.

Mr. Weasley saw that everyone was nearly finished their breakfast so he stood up and cleared his throat for silence. "I know the last thing you need is more bad news," he began in a business-like manner, "but since we are now a target of you-know-who, Dumbledore thinks that it is best that we move to headquarters until he is destroyed."

"And I agree with him, " added Mrs. Weasley firmly. "And Harry dear, Dumbledore wants you to stay with the Dursleys while we move and settle in, you'll be safe and out of the way there."

"What," gasped Ron, "We're moving?"

Harry looked appalled. "But I hate it there!" he yelled crossly.

"Yes, we are moving for the time being, end of story. Harry, at the Dursley's there you will be safe. Remus, Moody, and Tonks will escort you there and explain everything to you Aunt and Uncle. It won't be as bad as last time, Tonks will stay with you and act as your body guard," explained Mrs. Weasley.

"Fine," replied Harry resigned for the worst.

"I still don't want to move," grumbled Ron into his cup of tea.

"With that over with I want you to start packing once you have finished breakfast."

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Hermione sat at the end of Ginny's bed watching her pack. Ginny was carefully trying to fit all her possessions into a trunk and a muggle backpack. Even though the Weasleys were poor they still had manage to collect many odd trinkets over the years.

"I never thought I would have to leave this place and go into hiding," said Ginny gloomily, struggling with a pile of robes that refused to fit in her overflowing trunk.

"At least you still have your family," mumbled Hermione sitting on the lid of the trunk so Ginny could close it.

Ginny fell silent at this and occupied herself with collecting up all her hair bands and putting them in a bag. After a while she decided it was safe to speak again. "It is so dark and dingy at HQ, do you think we will ever get used to living there?"

"You'll have too, Voldemort isn't going to disappear any time soon." The cynical tone in which Hermione said this made Ginny uneasy. It was as if she thought that Ginny's problems were nothing and she had no right to complain.

"Hurry up Ginny," Called Mrs. Weasley from the bottom of the stairs, "Tonks and Kingsley have ministry cars we can ride in."

Ginny and Hermione navigated their way down the creaky stairway with Ginny's trunk, backpack, pillows, and blanket. Fred was at the bottom of the stairs packing iron pans into a wooden crate and looking questioningly at his father.

"How did they get them?" asked Fred with a frying pan in one hand.

"Well, we –err- borrowed them without permission," stammered Mr. Weasly running his hand over his head. "So lets get our stuff in and return them before they are missed."

"Nice to see our father finally letting loose from the law, isn't it Fred?" asked George walking past levitating two chairs and a couch in front of him.

"Most certainly," replied Fred placing the frying pan in the crate.

"Just help pack and get these boxes into the car!" snapped Mrs. Weasley as she directed silver ware into a brown box using her wand.

"Yes Mother," said Fred in an overly polite way before moving the trunks and boxes out of the kitchen and into the cars waiting outside.

_Well,_ thought Hermione, _this will be my first time at 12 Grimmauld Place without Sirius._ The thought neither comforted her nor saddened her. After her parents' deaths, the death of Sirius had become just a fact with no more importance than one in a textbook.


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